Bid to save livestock market is taken straight to the council

FARMERS lobbied Guildford Borough Council on Wednesday night in an 11th hour attempt to save the livestock market at Slyfield. Grouped around a banner reading "Farmers need a livestock market" and with a tractor blocking the entrance to the councillors' car park, more than 50 farmers besieged the council before a meeting at which the market's fate would be decided.

Their efforts resulted in an amendment that in the next six months officers should investigate the opportunities for retaining a livestock market in the borough.

But farmers were upset that councillors went ahead and agreed to take a one-off capital payment from the property developer in exchange for extending the lease of the site to 150 years. Before the meeting began, the chairman of the Guildford Livestock Support Group, Reg Haydon, said they had sent every councillor a letter asking them to delay any decision about the market so farmers could have a chance to make their representations.

In the letter to councillors, he also pointed out that in Ashford and Salisbury the sale of inner city market sites had produced large capitals sums that were then used to relocate and built new markets outside town. At the meeting, Mike Pooley (Ind, Tongham) moved the amendment that officers should investigate new possibilities. "We should help them (the farmers)," he said. "We will benefit by the sale of the lease which will benefit the whole community." And Anne Lee (Lib Dem, Merrow & Burpham) said: "I hope that perhaps one of the farmers who has made contact with us could put forward plans which show how a livestock market could be run viably on their land." Councillors unanimously agreed Mr Pooley's amendment.

Sallie Thornberry (Lab, Stoke) then moved an amendment to take the money from the developer as part income and part capital. She told the meeting that the borough treasurer had said an income stream of rent from the site would be preferable. She added that the figure the council was getting was nothing like the £7 million that had been rumoured. Fiona White (Lib Dem, Stoughton) claimed it was more of a gamble to see what came from the development than to take the capital and not spend, but invest it, and use the income from that. But speculation is rife among some councillors that the Liberal Democrats might use the capital payment to help fund the Guildford Civic refurbishment.